-fno-guess-branch-probability switch...

[Dave Fladebo <dfladebo at starband dot net>]

Great work to all - I just ran some benchmark stuff with gcc v3.0.4 against  
VC++ v7.0 on the same (dual boot Linux / WinXP) box, and gcc generally comes 
out on top.  Amazing!!!

What exactly does the following imply?

---------------
-fno-guess-branch-probability
Sometimes gcc will opt to guess branch probabilities when none are
available from either profile directed feedback (`-fprofile-arcs')
or `__builtin_expect'.  In a hard real-time system, people don't
want different runs of the compiler to produce code that has different
behavior; minimizing non-determinism is of paramount import.  This
switch allows users to reduce non-determinism, possibly at the expense
of inferior optimization.
---------------

It almost sounds to me like the branch-prediction is being done "randomly" in 
some cases, so that the exact same code may be compiled differently given the 
exact same compiler options, etc...

That is NOT correct, right??? In other words, the following statement would be 
true:

"Given the same source code and compiler switches, the gcc/g++ compiler will 
produce the exact same binary code." 

Please advise.

Thanks!

Dave Fladebo
dfladebo@starband.net